PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. 



113 



over, that method misses the real training of the mind, the 

 intellectual gymnastic, which comes from the patient study and 

 gradual mastery of the languages themselves. Humanistic 

 training without Latin and Greek is like what, I suppose, 

 scientific training would be without mathematics. 



" At the public schools during the past thirty years the modern 

 side has grown apace, while the classical side in many, not all, 

 schools has dwindled. But we are coming (should I say, have 

 come ?) to realise that the hard line of cleavage between the two 

 has had its day. Classical -side boys should and do learn science, 

 and modern-side boys are regaining at least a grudging respect 

 for Latin, if not for Greek. Education at school should be com- 

 prehensive until the stage is reached where specialisation begins 

 — whether in classics, science, history, mathematics, or modern 

 languages — and the more classics a boy has done in the earlier 

 stages, the better he will prove to be in his special subject later, 

 whatever be the line of special study he adopts. Setting aside 

 the few really clever boys, who will naturally come to the top 

 in any department, I think that most schoolmasters will agree 

 that the classical -side boy is the boy of better calibre and the 

 classical side produces the better boy. He will generally beat 

 the ' modern-sider ' on the latter's own ground — in French, in 

 English, in History, at any stage in his school career ; and in the 

 later stages, if you give him a few months to make up leeway, 

 in science and mathematics too. In the United States this 

 observation, which is with me only an impression from experience, 

 has actually been verified from statistics. These show that on 

 every basis of comparison the classically trained students in 

 the institutions from which the figures are drawn exhibit a 

 superiority over the others in non-classical subjects, which is 

 ' striking even to those whose faith in the classics is most 

 profound.' 



In the past the study of Latin and Greek grew distasteful, 

 not only perhaps because many parents failed to realise its true 

 value, but because the treatment was made too intensive at the 

 lower stages for the average boy. It is for those only who at the 

 later stages specialise in classics that the intensive culture 

 should be reserved, entaiUng hard composition, critical examina- 

 tion of difficulties in grammar, syntax and style and the more 

 searching ^tudy of antiquities. For the general classes it is 

 possible soon to learn to translate and apj)reciate an a\ithor 

 without any great ' drudgery ' in the minutise of the language. 



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